If you know anything about Corporate America, you know that managers and stakeholders pay BIG BUCKS to have people help them create online courses. This is mainly because they understand the value of online courses and how improving someone’s skill directly impacts a company’s bottom line. Okay enough of that corporate lingo...

As an entrepreneur, you should also understand the value of an online course too! Helping someone grow their skill set with an online course can be life changing and it does WONDERS for your business. Here is why you should create an online course if you are still on the fence:

• You have knowledge that you are bursting out of the seams to share• You want to start OR add an additional stream of income to your business• You want to move closer to the idea of “passive income” (making money on autopilot)

The next question you may be asking is, “What type of online course should I create?” Then I would ask you, “What are you passionate about, that others want to know about AND are willing to pay you to know?” That is the million dollar question. Most don’t create online courses because they get stuck with that one question. So let’s get unstuck! Below are three steps to get to help you monetize your passion into an online course.

1. Create a Course Topics List

I’m sure you have heard the word passion so many times that it goes in one ear and out the other. But if you don’t think about this step, when you start teaching people around a topic, and if that topic doesn’t excite you, it won’t excite them either and you’ve lost an interested audience (that’s a training/teaching 101 rule). To make this online course work, you have to determine your passion. Create a list of 10 to 20 topics that you would love to teach for FREE (I’m not saying do it for free though, lol). Once this is done, proceed to the next step.

2. Ask People Would They Buy

Based on the list that you created in Step 1, go back through it and cross out anything that you are on the fence about, or anything that gives you that smiley with the half smile :-/. Those won’t work! Next, ask 10 people if they would be willing to pay to learn “blank” or whatever that thing is. If you don’t get any responses…keep asking! Ask your parents, friends, and people on social media. Ask until you are blue in the face. This part is CRUCIAL because the people that give you an answer could be your next paying client! Anything on your list they are not willing to pay for, cross it off your list and proceed to Step 3.

3. Research Your Competitors

Now, this is the last step in how to find a profitable course topic so that your idea actually makes you money. Use the remaining list to research potential competitors. This does two things:

It helps you further validate your course idea because if NO ONE has thought of it…your idea might not be a good one.

It allows you to see what others are doing so that you can approach your course from a different angle and make it uniquely Y-O-U.

This is another important step that you don’t want to miss because it could cost you having a course that sells or a course that fails… (wah, wah).

If you find that you don’t have competitors in your online course niche that could possibly be a bad thing. Trust me I know you are smart (we all are in our own minds, lol) and you could be the only living human being that has thought of your idea, but it’s highly unlikely. So if you uncover that no one is teaching or has taught, wrote a book, article, etc. about your course topic, do a little more research or cross it off your list!

What topics do you have remaining? Whatever topics are left could be the start of your very first profitable idea and ultimately your first online course. If you have already created a course and it’s not really making the money you want, go can still go back through these steps to make sure you have validated your course idea properly.

Validation helps us course creators eliminate course ideas that would cost us time and money. It can take weeks to create an online course so you don’t want to skip these must needed steps to validate your course idea. Need more course ideas? Check out 5 Online Course Ideas for Bloggers.

Want more help to monetize your passion in an online course? Download my Course Creation Checklist: 5 Things to Consider When Creating an Online Course, to ensure your course is where it needs to be and you make the money you deserve!

I help creative mompreneurs start, build, and grow their online businesses through done-for-you services, one one one coaching, and group programs so that they can build a business and life around passion and freedom.